“No you MUST uninstall Brave, the company is too shady!” -someone using a phone made by a literal advertising company

The two party system isn’t the only problem though, there’s also:

• Money being a form of speech – EU MEPs aren’t soliciting billionaires for money to spend on TV ads
• The 10th amendment – prevents any national effort where the federal govt uses a power not explicitly granted to it in the constitution. Obamacare tripped up here for instance, and Obamacare is far from national socialized healthcare. It was a feature when people identified more with their local culture, but in an era when every American identifies as American-first, and engages the political system accordingly by only knowing or caring about national candidates and parties, it becomes a bug.
• States that should have never been states – the US Senate took a heavy rural turn in the 19th century as vast, sparsely populated territories were given statehood. Nowadays this means to buy two US Senators you only need to gaslight ~600k people with advertising (the population of Wyoming). The founding fathers never really developed a solid plan for how the west would be settled, and it shows.
• Powerful and unaccountable Court – the Supreme Court is given authority over both other branches, serving life terms, with few guidelines or restrictions. A party with the Presidency and Senate at the right time can gain a majority of the court and undo (or manufacture) precedent at the snap of a finger. The resulting system makes it far easier to capture the court than to pass a constitutional amendment. Think abortion should be legal? Here’s a roundabout legal justification for that. Oh the new majority thinks it shouldn’t be? Okay now it’s gone. It’s a chaotic way to handle bedrock rights like access to healthcare and privacy (neither of which are mentioned anywhere in the US constitution). The constitution should be malleable enough that the court is strictly tasked with interpreting the letter of the law. The US shouldn’t be relying on legal gymnastics to legalize abortion and gay marriage. It’s unstable and undemocratic.
• Electoral College – the leader of the country, not just the Executive but the Head of State, is elected in a way that respects statehood more than personhood. It is more concerned with making sure Wyoming gets a fair vote than making sure John Doe in Queens does.
• First past the post voting – this is another oversight by the founding fathers that many European republics were able to avoid, and it’s the root cause of the two party system. But it also makes gerrymandering possible, which completely breaks both state-level politics and the US House. It makes so many seats into “safe seats” that the “money is speech” briberies become much easier to allocate.
• Racism – almost every dumb thing about American politics can be traced back in some form to slavery, segregation, or racism. Why is every state given 2 senators? Slavery. Why were some of those rural states admitted? Also slavery. Why did White Americans support progressive policies in the 30s, 40s, and 50s? Segregation. Why did the entire Deep South flip from Democrat to Republican in the late 60s? Also segregation. It’s America’s original sin and it’s still playing a role.

Every one of those things plays a role in the US not adopting stricter privacy standards, or leading the way in anything except military might. It’s why American politics is so broken that even a majority of voters wanting to fix it isn’t enough.

Well yeah, no one has ever used the term “only hope” optimistically lol

Wikipedia seems to suggest it was an original term, first recorded use in 1909, and mentions nothing about alternative terms or controversy. I call BS

That’s kind of an extreme example lol unless the game is asking for insane permissions. Still I get your point and hopefully the EU acts on it. Especially since they appear to be humanity’s only hope against shit like this

Yeah Android manufacturers been doing this since its inception. I remember having to remove the Blockbuster app from my Droid X lol

I use Youtube more than any other service. If you like video essays, documentaries, and other medium- and long-form content, it’s the only place on earth to get it. Cable television ditched intelligent content long ago. Nebula and Curiousity are okay, but most of the content that I couldn’t already get on Youtube has that shitty cable tv vibe.

The only downside with Youtube is it’s huge and the algorithm is iffy. It can take a long time to build up a library of subscriptions that provide high level content every day. But now that I have that, it’s basically my exclusive streaming platform. I watch 1hr of Netflix/HBO/whatever with my wife every night, and all the rest is history, cooking, science, etc. on Youtube.

Yeah

If you really feel like getting sentimental, check out this Wait But Why, specifically the “Relationships” section. There’s also this awesome Kurzgesagt video which was inspired by it.

Ugliness is correlated with age, and ripeness is correlated with age, so ugliness and ripeness would at the very least be spuriously correlated.

It’s more about ownership of a copyright than ownership of an actual item though. There are issues with our copyright system that could be addressed (DMCA should be launched into the sun), but overall it’s the lesser of two evils. A society without any copyright enforcement simply wouldn’t produce the kinds of outstanding media that we’re all used to. Movies today cost hundreds of millions to make, and without a sufficient profit motive, no investor would be willing to front that kind of cash. Even crowdfunding, which I actually feel is scammier than private investors, has never come close to raising the capital needed for a major film or TV show. The system only works so long as a critical mass of consumers are actually paying for most media.

Personally I’m fine with paying netflix for their content, with the understanding that I’m licensing its use on my television, not purchasing the work outright. I don’t see that as any kind of scam. I mean I still pirate too, but now that I’m at a point in life where I can afford to contribute, I try to. I have friends that are actors and writers and so I don’t mind paying to ensure a healthy ecosystem of content creators moving forward. But if you make it too difficult or inconvenient for me to access the media I want, then to the high seas I sail, and I’m fine with that too lol

Seriously I don’t understand all the mental gymnastics on an anonymous internet forum, just admit it was easy to steal and you didn’t feel like paying for it lol

People will feel more guilty about piracy than speeding, even though the latter kills thousands of people every year.

But also, are you absolutely sure it’s theft for me to walk into a Hertz and take a vehicle? Like if they’re not in the business of selling vehicles then surely it can’t be theft to take one…